Energy cost breakdown

Croft12

badmemory said:

My answer would be that they are expecting massive increases in costs this winter.  I am already over the £1k.  But I am letting that ride because with fairly new solar I think it has thrown their systems a bit of a wobbler.

I am sure the general increase in DDs cannot be anything to do with ofgem telling them they need higher financial reserves.

Just req a refund. No need to run it that high. I do every month after my solar credits and will let it run up to 300 for winter.

sheenas

Depending on supplier you can just pay for what you have used monthly. I am currently paying around £60 a month during the summer and this will slowly go up as we use more gas in the winter to around £120 or so. 

Qyburn

Annelii said:

 ... I realise it’s not a regulatory requirement to provide a breakdown 

Every bill has a breakdown. Meter readings, number of kWh, price per kWh, number of days, price per day.

Scot_39

I think the OP wants the suppliers to actually define more explicitly their DD calculation relative to their usage explicitly - in the same way say as the bills - and their rolling credit / debit balances - rather than just saying here is the new DD level.

There are good clues - on bills - including the mandatory for comparison purpose tariff table information - and usages there in (at least on my bills) - but if on SVT - 4 cap changes a year do complicate that. 

Although I didnt get one this time at cap change for July - the old EOn Next new rate notices also came with a new annual cost estimate (my DD was revised in late May so possibly didn't warrant another review - iirc just after July cap announced).

So yes the OP can use his bills / monthly statements and true readings etc to track his true costs - but many do not.  (Having had suppliers mess up family accounts - to the tune of not months but in one case over a years consumption on gas - SG - I find it hard to trust them to do so as accurately as I can myself)

And I can kind of see the point - as its not been very transparent in the past at some.

And some of the reasons offered for large increments - when some have done their own estimates and challenged have been "interesting" - like iirc from one post in last few years - one large supplier saying they were using /10 not /12 for "some" customers - presumably to build average credit / debit levels up.

Arguably that might have been no different for some with larger -VE balances at one point in the cycle to what Octopus and Ovo are being very explicit about in their Mar / Apr minimum credit move - but they at least are explaining the new "price" for transitioning to that model to be paid.

RE his credit levels - there have been a few posts recently that suggest Octopus do appear to let large credits in the four figures £1000+ range build though - even for low users.

And it's possibly a common trend - in the past EOn used to auto refund anything more than a couple of months credit at annual review (remember those before market instability and the now 3 monthly cap). 

These days at EOn Next - you appear to have to manually request it - and over the last 2 years - I have also noticed that the little "request refund" button in the portal payments section actually goes away if they have recently built that credit into a new reduced DD amount. So you then have to phone to get the credit reduced and the DD increased to offset the loss of credit adjustment.

debitcardmayhem

The OP hasn’t said if their account is in credit or debit

Scot_39

OP has however said that was in credit and the DD was lowered because of it.

The OP also suggested maybe too far - perhaps indicating may even have drawn old credit account so in debit - but that would be an assumption - as yes - not sure OP has told us the current balance at time of re-calculation.

But the clearing of the old credit offset as always going to be a step - but it would / should be an expected one.

EssexHebridean

I actually agree with @Anneli that the suppliers should be required to make clearer the reasons for an increase - or indeed a decrease - in DD, and all the more so when it’s a dramatic one. We know from long experience that one thing that an awful lot of otherwise savvy consumers struggle with is energy bills - and it shouldn’t really be left for any consumer to have to do detective work to establish why a change is being made that can really affect their monthly budget. In this instance for example, it shouldn’t be beyond the bounds of possibility for them to have explained when the original decrease occurred that they expected that a similar level of increase would have to happen at some stage in the future once the credit balance had diminished. 

Scot_39

But then the OP stated in subsequent post

However there was a clear explanation about the reason for the first adjustment but nothing this time.

So you might say wonder if that made the size of credit, the size of the related DD cut and so either explicitly or simple arithmetic the duration of the cut also clear.

But inherently regardless the fact that it would be temporary until credit reduced, when tge OP would then pay more to reflect real costs.